SC allows 25-week pregnant woman to take call on abortion

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, permits abortion till the foetus is 20 weeks old. Many women discover problems with their pregnancies after 20 weeks and several have moved the SC seeking permission to abort.Amit Anand Choudhary | TNN | June 30, 2017, 07:40 IST

NEW DELHI: A 25-week pregnant woman from Kolkata stares at the toughest decision of her life -whether or not to undergo abortion. The Supreme Court on Thursday asked her to take a final decision after perusing the report of a medical board which examined her and the health of the foetus.

Sarmishtha Chakraborty , 33, had approached the apex court seeking permission to abort as the foetus had developed some abnormality. The SC had set up a board of doctors to examine her and the foetus.

After going through the medical report, placed before it by the West Bengal government in a sealed envelope, a bench of Justices A M Sapre and Sanjay Kishan Kaul directed that the report be given to Chakraborty so that she could make up her mind and take a stand on the next date of hearing on July 3 when the court will pass its order. The bench also directed that the contents of the report should not be made public as it would violate her privacy .

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, permits abortion till the foetus is 20 weeks old. Many women discover problems with their pregnancies after 20 weeks and several have moved the SC seeking permission to abort.

Chakraborty had sought the court's nod to abort on learning that the foetus had congenital problems. She attached a report from renowned cardi ac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty which said the child, if born, might suffer from congenital problems and may not survive. On June 23, the SC appointed a medical board of seven senior doctors of SSKM Hospital in Kolkata to examine her.

Chakraborty has also challenged the constitutional validity of Section 3(2)(b) of the MTP Act which allows abortion only up to 20 weeks. She told the court that abnormalities in foetus were detected only at a late stage of pregnancy and a woman should be allowed to abort beyond the permissible time period. “The ceiling of 20 weeks is arbitrary and discriminatory ,“ she said in her petition. The SC, on the last hearing, had agreed with her contention and said the law “must be stretched“ to make it “meaningful“ by allowing abortion beyond 20 weeks.

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